It has emerged that the United States of America has carried out 674 covert military operations in Africa last year, under the cover of the US-Africa Command (AFRICOM) military strategy aimed at eradicating terrorism activities in Africa.
In 2013, the combined total of all US activities in Africa reached 546, an average of more than one mission per day. But the figure leaped to 674 in 2014, making it two operations per day.
These covert activities includes drone strikes to insurgents, intelligence gathering, marksmanship training and other military operations.
Billions of dollars are said to have been pumped into Africa to build bases, arm allies, gather intelligence, fight proxy wars, assassinate militants, and conduct thousands of military missions. Instead of building infrastructure like the Chinese or even feeding the people, they spend money destroying infrastructure and killing the people….
But the critical question is: are the objectives of these missions accomplished in the wake of these huge military spending by the US? Maybe AFRICOM can cite that it was able to kill the leader of Somali’s militant group-Al Shabab in a complex and very expensive drone attack last year. But despite that, al Shabab is still a formidable militant group and can now even stage attacks in Kenyan soil. Al Shabab this month slaughtered some 142 students at a college in Kenya.
Last year, al Shabab either planned or executed increasingly complex and lethal attacks in Somalia, Kenya, Uganda, Djibouti and Ethiopia. Boko Haram is causing havoc in Nigeria. The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad is also active in Mali and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has also taken over the Sahara.
For the north of Africa, we dare not say a word. Libya has been completely taken over by various armed groups including Islamic State fighters. But remember the US was very instrumental with NATO to turn once a peaceful nation into a scene of chaos.
All the terror activity planned by these groups are on the rise. Therefore, the US’s huge military spending in Africa is very questionable, as nothing seems to ever get better. Money is just going down the drain…. for nothing, or worse…. civillian deaths that only lead to more support for the jihadists. And some independent observers have said that since the US had activated AFRICOM in 2008, more armed groups are emerging and the existing ones are gaining more ground. What could be the real motives of the US AFRICOM strategy?
But upon all the overwhelming evidence that the US military strategy is a farce and that the tax payers’ money is being wasted in an unprofitable venture, AFRICOM commander-David Rodriguez continue to blindly defend the US military’s involvement in a continent that is mostly peaceful.
“Progresses have been made in several areas through close cooperation with our allies and partners. Where our national interests compel us to tip the scales and enhance collective security gains, we may have to do more either by enabling our allies and partners, or acting unilaterally,” he addressed the Senate committee that is looking into the effectiveness of AFRICOM.
The question we need to think about is: if the US has increased its military activities in Africa and we still have terror groups growing stronger day by day, then, what military activities is the US carrying out in Africa? What we want to see is results… If no concrete progress is coming from AFRICOM, it should be closed down to save the nation money, and stop it from formenting even more unrest and chaos.
